Clint Boulton

IBM’s move to acquire Ascential Software for $1.1 billion gives the company a big advantage over rivals like Microsoft and Oracle in the data integration field and could lead to a litany of similar buys, analysts said. Should the deal succeed, IBM will plug a major hole in its portfolio by adding Ascential’s broad suite […]

OASIS approved version 2.0 of the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) as a standard, providing guidelines for developers to create single sign-on applications that work across disparate locations on the Internet. Backed by vendors, such as IBM, BEA Systems and Sun Microsystems, SAML 2.0 lets users authenticate data exchanges between an application and a security […]

UPDATED: IBM agreed to acquire Ascential Software for $1.1 billion in cash in a bid to extend its lofty position in the market for data integration software. The deal, priced at $18.50 per share, is expected to close in the second quarter, according to IBM officials. Businesses all over the world use data integration software […]

SOA Software acquired messaging specialist ThoughtDigital LLC to relay Web services payloads, rounding out its portfolio of management, security and UDDI software. SOA Software’s Service Manager sets policies for XML data and Web services in a secure, monitored fashion. The vendor’s XML VPN lets businesses securely publish Web services for their partners to exchange. Lastly, […]

Microsoft’s acquisition of Groove Networks will give it access to secure middleware and an advantage over rivals IBM and Oracle , analysts said. The company will gain new technology to provide customers with an offline collaboration client and benefit from the expertise of Ray Ozzie, renowned creator of Lotus Notes. Ozzie, for whom Microsoft Chief […]

EMC’s slew of software purchases over the last few years has enabled the company to broaden its scope. This has led to new programs like Making Storage Simple (MSS), unveiled earlier this week to serve small- to medium-sized businesses. While EMC isn’t exactly reinventing itself as a systems vendor, the company is increasingly looking like […]

IBM is offering the Blue Gene supercomputer for remote access at its new Deep Computing Capacity on Demand Center. The plan is part of its strategy to offer most of its products on-demand. The new center will allow customers and partners to access the system, which offers 5.7 teraflops of power in a single rack […]

News junkies who make the daily pilgrimage to the Google News site now have more control over how they see their news with new customization options, officials said Thursday. The Mountain View, Calif., company added a bevy of new features to its seemingly perpetual beta news site, allowing users to re-arrange the sections on the […]

UPDATED: Microsoft agreed to acquire collaboration software maker Groove Networks for an undisclosed sum, and will install the company’s founder and Lotus Notes creator Ray Ozzie as CTO. Groove’s Virtual Office products let any Windows-based PC user create virtual work spaces that allow information workers all over the world to work as though they were […]

Cisco Systems revised its storage virtualization tools, adding new hardware and software to keep ahead of rivals Brocade Communications Systems and McData. During the kickoff of CeBit 2005 in Germany Thursday, the company unveiled the MDS 9000 Storage Services Module and the MDS 9000 SAN-OS 2.1, built to improve the way the Cisco MDS 9000 […]

E-business standards group OASIS approved Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) as a standard, eliminating a key barrier for the broader adoption of Web services. Created by IBM, HP, Computer Associates, BMC Software, WSDM lets programmers write management applications using Web services that may be controlled by many users through one interface. Developers will use the […]

IBM’s bid to sell its personal computing division to Lenovo passed muster with a U.S. government group, removing a major barrier to a deal that has faced worldwide scrutiny because of Lenovo’s ties to the Chinese government. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) approved the $1.25 billion exchange ahead of the March […]